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10 Ways to Measure Translation ROI… and Five Ways to Measure Translation Technology ROI

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10 Ways to Measure Translation ROI…And 5 Ways to Measure Translation Technology ROI 2smartling.com

Any ROI calculation depends on what matters most to your business and brand.

Does your organization currently place a high value on:

• Costs, the bottom line or annual revenue;

• Customer satisfaction or market share;

• Website traffic or social engagement; or

• Delivering on your product roadmap?

How do you measure the value of translation?

Most companies set business goals that focus on key metrics to

measure success. Tie your translation efforts to your business goals

and associated metrics in order to measure ROI. Of course, different

industry verticals, business objectives, and collective competencies

impact a given company’s choice of ROI metrics.

But when it comes to global expansion, the method of translation

used – and the level of commitment to localizing content and

consistently providing native brand experiences – has a major effect

on ROI of branded marketing efforts.

Read on to learn 10 ways brands can measure translation ROI, and five

ways to measure the added ROI from using a translation management

platform – and for each point, compare expansion without translation,

with manual translation, with machine translation and with the

preferred hybrid model.



Any brand with a website is a global brand, and people anywhere can

research, interact with, promote or even damage the brand in its

home country. Native brand experiences require brands to respond

to each audience, by becoming fluent in any language, all cultures

and every market – making sure a legitimate show of interest is

reciprocated with a series of appropriate and respectful interactions.

To measure translation visibility, count page views, likes and shares

and you will have an idea of how many eyes are on you. But to

measure translation effectiveness, and ROI, determine how well your

content resonates with any and all eyes on your brand.

How many people are consuming your content and why?

All Eyes on You

1



Brands attract attention and each type of attention can be captured

and reviewed using analytics. Relative to audience size, how does

traffic compare between markets and languages, for similar content

and campaigns?

Remember, marketing strategies vary from country to country and

language to language, so making your content locally accessible is

essential. Then, for example, understanding how a campaign did well

in 95 percent of markets, but failed to do well in the other five percent,

will offer valuable insight as to whether the content resonated, and if

not why not.

Ask yourself if there is something different, unique or special in the

tastes and sensitivities of those markets – test, fix and re-test any

issues on the next native brand experience, and feed learnings back

into the creation process.

Web analytics help you to navigate global markets, buyers and customers.

Traffic...Everywhere

2



Resonate and your app will soon see increased downloads.

Downloads Matter

3

In a world where first impressions of a brand are made – and

reader ‘bounce’ happens – in seconds, and where mobile download

restrictions limit most activity to click, scroll and read, an app

download is a major sign that your brand resonated with someone on

a personal level. In fact, simply having a localized app can boost your

app store ranking too.

Most users welcome an app download only once rationally or

emotionally comfortable with the relationship that they expect from

your brand. A localized website is only as good as the mobile app

asking for space on an already full smartphone screen. When your app

is downloaded, make sure it does not disappoint, or ruin the native

brand experiences and long-term relationships you work to create.



Resonating with one person in one market is great, although it is

not going to secure an aspirational business’ expansion milestones

and objectives alone. But, if a brand resonates with one person in a

language or within a culture, it is likely they will do well with others.

More importantly – people talk and word of mouth still matters –

even in a digitally pivoted wold.

Consider that one person as your first; your golden ticket into the

market. Continue to resonate with each audience no matter how

small, and you will start to resonate with more people, until your

audience grows and your brand becomes established.

Remember to use the audiences you have already to gain feedback,

and even curate the relationship to encourage sharing and word of

mouth. This will help to improve future native brand experiences

you produce.

Friends and family talk, as do businesses ... and buyers.

Word of Mouth Matters More

4



Audiences, Buyers, Customers

Whether your business operates B2B, B2C (or both), your

technology should help your brand to attract people, be that

by improving page load times to lower bounce rates, or simply

ensuring the timely and accurate delivery of native brand

experiences to appropriate audiences.

In the always-on digital environment of today, brands need to be

there when people look for the information they need, the products

they want, or the solutions to their most pressing problems. Once

familiarity and routine are established with an audience, lessons can

be learned and applied elsewhere.

The ABCs that will bring native brand experiences to life.

5



Valuable Engagement

Buyer and customer persona that both accurately reflect who

your likely audiences are, and establish which visitor categories

are appropriate and suitable to engage with. This is determined by

your business and brand goals, and measured for each location and

every location.Attract, engage and resonate, to bring people closer.

6

Engagement with the right audiences is valuable – if not essential – to growth. But unless that engagement resonates in a more personal and permanent way, growth is not assured.



Resonate to SatisfyIt is useful to consider why resonating with audiences works...

7

A reader who likes your article on Facebook was somewhat engaged.

But resonate with that reader – speak to who they are, in their

language – and they will love your article on Facebook, send it to

colleagues and friends with similar interests, who then arrange a

trip to your store, launch event or product demo as a group, ready to

evangelize your brand.

Why would the reader do all of this for a brand? Because that brand

has shown it cares, taken the time to invest in communicating in a

language that is often unfamiliar, but always worthwhile. Position

your brand to satisfy ‘their’ context, and people will take notice.



Loyalty ReciprocatedResonating loyally builds long-term relationships.

8Actively engaging appropriate audiences is a privilege, and brands

need to understand this. Attracting new followers is great, but

keeping them is critical – having gathered them in, existing buyers

and customers are now your lowest hanging fruit.

You know you did something right in attracting them, or can work

this out using analytics. Now make them a recurring buyer or

customer whose loyalty is firmly with your brand. It could be that

the same things that attracted them to your brand still will, it may be

that you need to introduce new, fresh aspects to the native brand

experiences you provide.

Either way, loyalty is hard to earn and easy to take for granted – once

you have loyalty in a market, protect and respect it at every touchpoint.



Capturing Market Share

Since 2012, about 200 million people each year log on to the internet

for the first time – averaging more than 500,000 people every day.

Out of more than 7 billion people in the world, more than 3 billion

people will be ‘online’ by 2016. To capture global market share, a

brand must make its digital assets available in as many languages

as possible, in real-time.

How much of your total addressable market can you reach?

9

With the right technology, translation cycle times can be shortened, costs can be cut by 90 percent, and each individual market can receive the right message – this is the right strategy for global growth.



Recurring Revenue Streams

10

All brands want:

• All eyes on them,

• Traffic everywhere,

• Tons of downloads,

• Evangelists and followers,

• New audiences, buyers and customers,

• Totally engaged by great content,

• In a language they understand,

• On each and every visit -

• Now and always.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to brands getting such attention is the

relationship between expenditure now and revenue later – return on

investment has to be higher, to warrant the initial outlay now. But

preparing native brand experiences for audiences in any language, all

cultures and every market promises to pay off, with recurring revenue

streams from around the world the ultimate reward.

How much of your total revenue already relies on translation?



As mentioned, it is important

to compare expansion without

translation, with manual translation,

with machine translation and

with the preferred hybrid model

(human translators using a reliable

translation management platform).

For machine and hybrid translation

solutions, there are five business

benefits technology should afford

a brand:

5 Ways to Measure Technology Translation ROI

Translation by machine or using

the hybrid model is intended to

remove unnecessary and repetitive

manual processes. From a business

perspective this means delivering

products and services to any market

– faster than the competition.

Translation processes can distract

your employees from regular

workflows, especially your tech

and engineering teams. A good

translation management platform

allows teams to focus on building

the business.

Faster time-to-market.

Improved focus.

And Finally:

1 2



5 Ways to Measure Technology Translation ROI (continued)And Finally:

Once you discover how achievable

offering a new language can be,

you will want to replicate this

and produce resonant content in

multiple languages and contexts of

markets you want to serve. The right

technology offers in-built scalability.

Using spreadsheets and email

as the backbone of translation

strategy slows companies down,

and provides plenty of opportunities

for error and miscommunication.

Technology removes problems and

improves efficiency.

Scalable and resonant.

Greater efficiency.

Translating by machine fails to

localize content or properly provide

native brand experiences. But a

reliable translation management

platform (with human translators)

ensures you control who sees what

content and avoid distributing

anything out of context.

Complete control. 4 53



Learn More

Native brand experiences resonate with buyers and customers in any language, all cultures, and every market – and are essential to global success. Does your brand deliver? Access your FREE Global-Ready Success Kit and prepare for a new phase of global growth.

Ready to get started? Smartling can help you to develop a global content strategy that will propel you into new markets, fuel global growth, and increase your bottom line. Contact us today for a demo of the Smartling Global Fluency Platform so that your brand can be fluent everywhere.


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About Smartling

Smartling uses technology to transform the waycontent is created and consumed around the world.Smartling’s Global Fluency Platform helps brands toaccess new markets, more customers and greater value.

The Global Fluency Platform allows ambitiousbrands to achieve a more dominant global position.Smartling enables brands such as British Airways,InterContinental Hotels Group, Uber, AdRoll, Shinola,Spotify, Pinterest, Hasbro and SurveyMonkey toprovide truly native brand experiences.

Smartling is headquartered in NYC with over 100employees. For more information, visitwww.smartling.com.



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